Cary Grant’s iconic Beverly Hills home has hit the market for an eye-watering $77.5 million, courtesy of his widow and fifth wife Barbara Jaynes née Harris.
Barbara was a British hotel public relations agent when she met the actor back in the 1970s, when he began renovating the home, and she was also 47 years his junior.
Cary and Barbara
They met in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London when she was working and he was attending a Fabergé conference and became friends.
However, it took a few years before their friendship blossomed into romance, and by 1979, she moved to California and his famed Beverly Hills home to live with him.
They tied the knot in 1981 and lived a happy life together in his stately home for the final years of his life. Cary passed away in 1986, leaving his home and the entirety of its contents to Barbara.
Cary’s Beverly Hills home
The couple hosted several lavish affairs in their home, having the likes of Gregory Peck and Frank Sinatra over quite often. The six-bedroom 13-bathroom estate did come with a few problems, such as having low ceilings that hindered views of the gorgeous landscapes below.
© Getty ImagesThe Hollywood star first bought the home for $46,000 back in 1946, when he starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. By this point, he was the biggest name in the industry, a two-time Academy Award nominee with several hits like The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story and Suspicion, to name a few.
He began work on renovating the home himself on a three-acre plot and lived there for the rest of his life. Barbara was Cary’s fifth wife, having previously been married to Virginia Cherrill (1934-35), Barbara Hutton (1942-45), Betsy Drake (1949-62), and Dyan Cannon (1965-68).
Barbara’s home makeover
The Charade star ended up leaving the rest of his estate to his only child, his daughter Jennifer Grant, plus a few other charities. In 2001, Barbara tied the knot with real estate investor David Jaynes, and the pair finally began redoing the Beverly Hills home in an effort to update it for the new millennium.
© Getty ImagesBarbara told the Wall Street Journal that while they loved the home and the way they were able to give it a whole new look, they intended to sell it in the hopes of moving somewhere smaller instead.
“Cary, even when he finished [the renovation], he said, ‘I should have knocked the whole thing down,'” she told the publication. The couple demolished some of the home to reconstruct it into a more contemporary-style mansion, which was finished in 2022.
© Getty Images“We didn’t want anything to clash with the beauty of the view,” she noted, mentioning they opted for much higher ceilings and glass doors to highlight their surroundings. Other features of the home include a 52-foot pool, a home theater, a wine room, a full gym, white marble and oak finishings, a garden of white roses and what is described as a “glam room.”
Barbara has since made a few appearances over the years in documentary films about her late husband, including 2017’s Becoming Cary Grant as Barbara Jaynes, having also gone by “Barbara Grant Jaynes.”
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